ATHENS — If the spring game isn’t televised and thus only the people in the stadium saw it, does it still really matter?
That is the question Kirby Smart will be pondering moving forward. He thought Saturday was a successful day for the program, where the Red Team beat the Black Team 34-17.
But when asked if the annual G-Day tradition would continue, Smart was noncommittal.
“I’d say it’s year by year,” Smart said. “It probably has more to do with my team, the health of our team, the number of players in college football. I mean, we as coaches don’t control the numbers we have, so if we don’t have enough numbers we won’t be able to have the game.”
Injuries were a factor for Georgia this spring, impacting a number of positions. Likely defensive starters Daylen Everette, Christen Miller and Gabe Harris all sat out Saturday’s game as they recover from offseason surgeries. On the offensive line, Monroe Freeling and Daniel Calhoun did not play.
During the game, two players who started exited the spring scrimmage, as outside linebacker Quintavius Johnson picked up an ankle injury while wide receiver Noah Thomas left with an AC sprain.
Georgia still had enough bodies to get through the game, where the defense had the better first half before the offense figured things out in the second half.
But many of those available bodies were young, unproven players. They, such as redshirt freshman Ryan Puglisi, stand to benefit the most from a traditional spring game.
Puglisi did not play in last season’s spring game due to a knee injury. On Saturday, he finished with 49 pass attempts.
“Ryan’s done a good job,” Smart said. “Ryan continues to get better since it’s his first spring. I mean, he ain’t got a chance to compete and do much. He has growth. He’s still probably a little bit behind Gunner in terms of the knowledge of the offense, but he’s catching up in regards to that, right? He’s getting experience, knowing when to pull it down and run it, when to throw it away, just game management decisions.”
Saturday was the first chance for Georgia’s 2025 signing haul to see the field. The Bulldogs welcomed 24 early enrollees this cycle, along with six transfers.
Because of the consistent roster churn, Georgia will be counting on those new faces to play an even bigger role moving forward.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in terms of offseason and getting ourselves where we need to be for next year, but a lot of the mid-years got valuable minutes,” Smart said. “I can remember when mid-years kind of went with the threes and fours, and now it seems like more of them are going with the twos. That’s just the way of college football right now.”
Of those mid-year enrollees, Elijah Griffin, Bo Walker, CJ Wiley and Dominick Kelly all impressed. Albeit it was in front of a thinned-out Georgia crowd.
The announced attendance for Saturday was 35,003. Consider that in Smart’s first spring game, Sanford Stadium was filled to capacity on what is now known as 93K Day.
That age of college football seems long gone. Smart now spends as much time talking about position battles as he does pending lawsuit settlements and the transfer portal, which opens on Wednesday.
All those constraints and external pressures have an impact on the Georgia roster.
Moving forward, the answer to the question of whether Georgia will have a spring game will be a conditional yes, provided it still benefits the team itself.
“I think it’s a great tradition, but it’s more about what does our team need than just what Athens needs,” Smart said.
